Chapter Twenty-Five - Eating

  Grinning as they sat down on one of her fancy new bamboo blankets atop the grass, Victor explained, “So. After your visit to the kitchen this morning, the royal chefs may or may not have pressured Stephen into letting them look at the crystals you made about cooking.”

  Jade held up a finger. “Stephen? I thought Eric had the crystals?”

  Camille laughed. “He did, but only for a short while. Or technically, he still does? We’ve been keeping them in his office at the library so that any of us who need access can get to them without bothering him.”

  Well, that was convenient. Especially with him currently in another city. Which was probably the point. If anything happened, they were safe. Thinking about it, she asked, “Should I be making two copies?” When they gave her curious looks, she added, “You know. Just so there’s a backup in a different location. I know the library is probably one of the safer places, but I saw what happened to the one in Mianach…” Her voice trailed off, letting the implications sink in.

  The two of them exchanged glances, then Victor nodded. “Perhaps you don’t need to remake everything in duplicate. Can you make a big one that has everything, like you did at the funeral?”

  Oh, right. She’d put all the spirit confessions into three crystals. Far more information than she’d been including in her instruction piles. Probably because she assumed different people would need access to them at varying points, so she’d been individualizing everything.

  “Yeah, actually. I can totally do that. But, okay. Back to the point you were making about the chefs?” She tried to steer the conversation back to food. Dinner was important!

  He laughed. “Well, they seemed particularly excited about one of the foods you introduced. I believe it’s called pizah?”

  “Pizza!?” She almost screamed the words as he made the delicious dishes appear from his ring. Six beautiful pizzas lay between them, and her eyes scanned them frantically as she labelled the flavors: cheese, some approximation of pepperoni that didn’t look quite right but close enough, some version of a barbeque meatlovers, a vegetarian piled high, and two that were meat and veggie combos. “Awww, no pineapple.”

  It might be a much-contested ingredient on Earth, but she’d barely ever touched the tangy treat and wanted to try it, just to see what the hubbub was all about.

  Looking a little helpless, Victor informed her, “They tried to find it, but the closest thing they could think of was something only grown in Niloi. We don’t currently have any, so they made do.” Well, fine. That just got added to her list of things to grow in the future.

  She picked up one of the vegetarian slices, pleased that they’d even done that properly as she watched the cheese stretch. “That makes sense. It was an island fruit to begin with, so it’s probably similar.” With that, she took a big, satisfying bite, humming with pleasure as the flavors exploded on her tongue.

  Camille adopted a more hesitant approach, starting with the plain cheese, while Victor went straight for the meatlovers. She could tell they weren’t sure if they’d like it, but their expressions changed to bliss after a bite.

  It was honestly lovely. They’d gotten the crust perfect, the tomato sauce was full of flavor, the cheese divine. The vegetables were baked without losing their satisfying crunch. “Mmmmm. Ten out of ten. Give my compliments to the chef!” She got the words out briefly before diving in for another bite. She should have expected the people hired by the royals to feed them to be excellent, but they rose to the occasion of a brand new recipe.

  She looked up at the pale orb in the sky and grinned, finishing her first piece before she burst into song, “With the moon in the sky, like a big pizza pie, that’s amore…” The royals looked amused at her antics, but they were too busy stuffing their faces to actually respond. Grinning, she grabbed a piece of the meatlovers, since it looked delicious, and dug in.

  Victor probably thought he’d brought enough for their siblings to eat too, given that each pizza was cut into eight pieces. Silly boy, his math was way off. Either that or the royal chefs had not quite been informed just how much she ate at every meal. The moral of the story was that while Victor and Camille each tapped out at trying four pieces, Jade polished off every plate. And still had room for more. It turned out that pizza, while delicious, was just not as filling as some of the other foods she’d been eating. The meat laden varieties were slightly better, but only because they’d obviously used the flesh of spiritual beasts.

  Pulling out a new barrel of smoothie, she asked, “Either of you want some?”

  Camille, still massaging her sides, shook her head quickly. “No. I can’t believe it still surprises me how much you can eat.” She eyed the barrel with trepidation, given that it was like half her size.

  Victor nodded in agreement. “It makes absolutely no sense that you can just casually down something that size.”

  Looking at the barrel as she formed her crazy straw for it, she shrugged. “I’m not going to drink it all at once. But in case you haven’t noticed, the sun went down about an hour ago, so I lost my easiest source of energy.” Sure, she could get a little from the moon, but it wasn’t the same. She couldn’t exactly steal energy from the plants either, because she was literally giving it to them so they could grow.

  And unlike a certain superpowered kineticist she could think of, there weren’t any wildfires or lightning storms she could conveniently go absorb the energy from. At least she didn’t face the same restrictions, like only being able to use what she’d taken in. That sounded miserable. Although she would not have minded the ability one of the girls had to make clones. Just think of all the things she could accomplish if there were even two Jades running around!

  Think of the crafting! She could have one working and the other running around tagging people for siphoning. Think of the chaos! Yeah, it was probably better there would only ever be one of her. It would have made experimenting easier, however. If she was doing a dangerous project, she could just send a clone in, and then if something happened, poof, she got the knowledge without actually dying or putting herself in danger.

  Camille sighed. “You know, some days I’m jealous of how much magic you have, but I don’t think I could handle the expenditures and work that got you there.”

  Shrugging as they cleaned up, she said, “Well, I did use my special ability to cheat for a lot of it.”

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  Victor shook his head. “That’s obviously part of it, but very few people drain and refill themselves like you seem to do constantly.”

  “Well, maybe that’s because they don’t have a good way to refill? Other people don’t seem to have eating as a skill. Or at least, I’ve never met anyone who does that I know of.” Pausing, she said, “Actually, that’s a theory. If you want to try and get it, find a magician and have them use energy constantly while eating. I bet that’s how you could get the skill as an adult.”

  Nodding thoughtfully, Victor agreed, “It sounds worth a try. We’ll have to test it at some point.”

  Cocking her head, she asked teasingly, “Oh, ‘we’ will have to try it, eh? Not planning on doing it yourself?”

  He flushed, but Camille saved her brother as she laughed. “Honestly, I doubt our retainers would let him, and it would be pretty hard to do it without alerting them. They’re already having a fit because of our bonds.” She lovingly reached down to stroke Gaara and Rasu, who’d stayed by her side faithfully, chomping at some nuts and seeds she procured for them.

  Curiously, she asked, “I didn’t think you were under that much watch.”

  He sighed, running a hand through his hair as he absently pulled at it. “You’ve only really seen me much at school or the castle. We’ve got people watching us everywhere there, even if you don’t realize it. I mean. Every guard you pass, every teacher, every worker…they all report to our parents. Maybe not directly, but they do. And… well. You’ve probably got more guards than you know, too.”

  She nodded. This wasn’t a new idea, and she honestly didn’t know how private most places were; her hidden guards probably had more problems than most keeping up with her. She didn’t exactly make it easy on them by flying all over town. The more likely scenario was that they had people staked out in her favorite stomping grounds, and if she went by foot they followed. Man, she was a nightmare for an organization trying to follow her, allies and enemy alike.

  He seemed relieved that she wasn’t freaking out about the knowledge, but she supposed he wasn’t aware that she was aware of the assassination and kidnapping attempts. Just the thought was giving her a headache. Everything was so convoluted. Trying to live life as a normal girl here was just a pipe dream long shattered.

  She patted him on the arm as she replied, “It sucks, but you’re probably used to it. And yes, I know I’ve got a bunch of secret guards, and there’s been a bunch of people trying to get to me who were stopped. That cat kinda came out of the bag when I was attacked by a spirit.” If her voice sounded sour, that’s because she still was. Shaking off those thoughts because she didn’t need to go down to that dark place yet again, she slowly got to her feet, brushing off any crumbs.

  “Welp. Now that we’ve cleared that up, I’m gonna see what I can do about creating some conditional lighting and growing fun things.” She paused, then pointed to the machran, “Oakley made a nice little nest spot on his other side. It’d be a good reading nook.”

  “We’ll check that out, thanks.” Victor replied as Camille nodded. Once the last of the plates was cleared up, Jade grabbed her blanket and shoved it back into the ring, not wanting to forget it accidentally.

  As they walked to Oakley after pulling out their personal light orbs(which she should probably carry at least one of in case of emergency), she considered her first course of action. She had some glass bubbles meant to hold spirits, but they were more reinforced than the ones for lights usually were. Shrugging, she just got out some quartz, smoothing it into a marble.

  Her coding this time was extremely delicate, as she was going to make something similar to her bomb, but with limits. Limits were good! She gave it the ability to absorb sunlight for three inches until it was 95% full, and not an iota more. She wanted to give it a sense darkness function, but wasn’t sure how to make it work, so instead she gave it an on/off switch instead. If it was touched, it would utilize the energy to let off a soft glow without heat. Another simple tap would turn it off. It would respond to even the softest of touches, so the fellacai could control the lights at will.

  Given that they were the ones who’d be here, she wanted them to have the ability to turn it off when she wasn’t around. She made seven more, then one much larger version. Using wind magic, she flew up to the one-third and two-third spots at the ceiling corners, embedding them partially into the stone. Since she’d charged them already, they shed a soft white light on the area.

  Having embedded the eight stones into the upper edges of the enclosure, she made her way to Oakley, pondering how best to do the next bit. Ultimately, she decided to just make one of those old-timey lamp post designs because it amused her. Shaping the iron and giving it decorative swirls so it was pretty, she decided to put it on the other side of Oakley so it wasn’t immediately visible from the door.

  Reaching the nook, she grinned down at the siblings who’d settled comfortably and were reading their own materials. “Decided to join us?” Camille asked teasingly.

  Shaking her head, Jade used a bit of metal magic, carefully driving the pole into the ground for stability after making sure none of Oakley’s roots were in the way. “What’s this?” Victor asked curiously, staring at her contraption.

  “It’s a street lamp. Or it will be in a moment.” Taking the last orb, she settled it into the head of the lamp, tapping it to make it light up. It shed a much stronger glow on the area. It wasn’t as bright as noonday, but maybe an hour after dawn. Addressing Oakley, she explained, “As long as you touch the light with a leaf or send one of the fellacai to do so, it’ll turn off. Just a soft tap to turn it back on again.” She briefly demonstrated, making the illumination vanish and reappear.

  “Oh, that’s quite a lovely permanent solution.” Camille said approvingly. Most lights were left on forever or covered when needed.

  Shrugging, Jade said, “Touch lamps were fairly normal on Earth. I just utilized the concept.”

  Victor grinned. “And we’ll enjoy spreading that further.”

  “Fair enough. All right. You guys enjoy your books. Now that I’ve got the lights settled, I’m gonna go grow some stuff.” They waved her off, and she moved away, considering the trees. She’d picked out ten varieties she thought had the greatest potential to help as Duke Telemar explained them.

  She first went to one of the back corners where she hadn’t grown anything, designating that as her control zone. She even raised a little six inch wall that clearly demarcated the area. Taking out the gifted spatial chest, she retrieved the seeds for the ten types, remembering what Craig said about the growing conditions of each one.

  Still, she quickly pulled out and flipped through the herbology book, finding the entries for each one and giving it a read, determining what their usual home ground was before frowning. Two of them normally grew in damp, shadowed places. Basically, a cave. Several of them required direct sunlight, while the last few were more of a mix. Her magic would make all of them grow, but she carefully paired the ones with the most similar environments together.

  Thinking of the cave, she sighed, then dug out some of the ground, creating a miniature grotto in the area. Finally satisfied, she stuck one of each seed in their new grounds, pushing her magic into them so they would grow and multiply to fill their area.

  In the meantime, she feverishly sucked smoothie in through the straw, trying to replenish the drain of growing everything at once. She didn’t send everything straight to full fruition, mostly because she wasn’t planning to harvest and use them tonight. It was enough to get them going, and she could mature as needed.

  The plants were still mostly green, but had pops of color as they grew flowers or unusual leaves. Nothing unexpected, thankfully. If they were to be an actual control group, she wanted them to match the samples Craig showed her. To be fair, this was also her seed group. If she needed more, she’d come gather the ‘normal’ ones to use.

  Satisfied that her control garden was set up properly, she took a minute to eat more of the meat that was in her rings. The smoothie was lovely for keeping a continuous stream, but the beast flesh just packed far more of a magical punch to fill her up.

  Grinning, she moved to the next spot, beneath the spirit and creation cherry tree. She’d eat as much as she had to in order to get her terraforming project completed tonight. She still had a few hours before she needed to hit the sack, and she intended to use them to the fullest.